Wine & Women

Conversations brought on by horrific and tragic circumstances about how women have had their power stripped from them are finally being paid forward to women from all walks of life. From starlets who were taken advantage of physically, to women separated from their children by an invisible wall, astoundingly these conversations have made it into the wine world. Did you know that while 62% of Viticulture and Ecology students are women, only 10% of California wineries employ female winemakers?

This new term “meritocracy” is the gender/race/sexual preference neutral term companies are using today. Merit is “gender-blind”. Men will even argue with women about what this means on public work panels. What’s a lady to do when men are “mansplaining” why she’s wrong about her feelings in the workplace in front of an audience?

“The women who work for me get along with everyone,” said one man in a San Francisco law office I worked for. Of course! It’s our camouflage. I’m proud to work for a company actually run by a strong, confident, capable woman like Vinformant in a male-dominated industry.

Women and wine have had a beautiful relationship for a thousand years. Sit back. Relax. Follow what our ancestors did. We all need that special something to dissolve the day away.